The present embodiments relate to a method for error recognition in a control system of a medical treatment and/or diagnosis device.
Program-controlled treatment and/or diagnosis devices are used in many applications in modern diagnostics and therapeutics. Because of the sometimes complex sequence of control and movement steps, these devices may also be known as robots (e.g., as control systems are used that are largely similar to those used in industrial robot applications). The use of such robots in safety-critical applications such as, for example, medical engineering, places very high demands on system safety. It must be possible that any malfunction in the robot can be detected and that the robot can be transferred to a safe condition in the event of a malfunction of the robot. A safe condition may stop the robot, for example. For this purpose, the correct functioning of critical hardware and software components are checked during operation and any malfunction detected.
To achieve this, safety-critical components may be redundantly designed. Output values are also checked continuously against target values so that, if there is any deviation, it may be concluded that a fault has occurred in one of the safety-critical components. Appropriate measures may then be taken to transfer the system to a safe condition. These embodiments of robot systems have a very high processing requirement. The result for critical software components, in particular, is an increased resource requirement in terms of processing time and memory space. In addition, independence of redundant components from one another may be regarded as disadvantageous. This applies equally for functions that lead to additional hardware costs.